We have come to the end of a very busy year, and one which has been incredibly rich in terms of experiences, partners and projects. And so, as I do at every year end, I’d like to acknowledge the my clients and partners for 2006:

Clients

• Association for Community Education of BC
• British Columbia Academic Health Council
• Beloit College Leadership Institute
• Berkana Institute
• Boeing
• Greater Vancouver Centre for Aboriginal Business
• Centre for Sustainability at the Vancouver Foundation
• First Nations Summit Chiefs Health Committee
• Child and Youth Officer for British Columbia
• The Dalai Lama Centre
• Department of Fisheries and Oceans – Pacific Region Consultation Sectretariat
• Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
• Elections Canada
• Assembly of First Nations, BC Regional Vice-Chief
• Knowledgeable Aborignal Youth Association
• BC Ministry of Employment and Income Assistance
• First Nations and Inuit Health Branch, Health Canada
• The Kettering Foundation
• The International Association for Public Participation
• M’akola Group of Societies
• BC Ministry of Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation
• Federal Treaty Negotiation Office
• Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia
• Prince George and Greater Vancouver Urban Aboriginal Strategy
• Department of Western Economic Diversification
• Orton Family Foundation for Placematters06
• Justice Institute of BC
• Caring, Helping and Nurturing Children Every Step, PEI
• Sliammon First Nation
• Soowahlie First Nation
• Treadlight Productions
• Fraser Regional Aboriginal Planning Council
• Vancouver Island Aboriginal Transition Team
• World Fisheries Trust
• Business Alliance for Local Living Economies BC

Partners

• Vince Verlaan
• Chris Robertson
• Patricia Galaczy
• Toke Moeller
• Sera Thompson
• Tim Merry
• Tennesonn Woolf
• Teresa Posakony
• Brenda Chaddock
• Michael Herman
• Dan George
• Tawney Lem
• Leslie Varley
• Lyla Brown
• Caitlin Frost
• Rob Paterson
• Peggy Holman
• Mark Jones

Work this year has taken me across BC, to Vancouver, Victoria, Parksville, Port Alberni. Nanaimo, Campbell River, Kelowna, Penticton, Merrit, Chilliwack, Prince George, Terrace and Prince Rupert. I’ve worked in Ontario, Nova Scotia and (by phone) with people in PEI. I’ve also travelled to the States, doing some work in Wisconsin, Washington and Colorado.

On the training front, with partners in the Art of Hosting community, we have offered programs in Parksville, BC, Yarmouth Nove Scotia and Bowen Island BC. This coming year, I’ll be working with Art of Hosting mates in Ottawa, Vancouver Washington, Columbus Ohio and on the Navajo Nation.

I also offered an Open Space practice retreat this year with my long time friend and partner Michael Herman here on Bowen Island, and did some other training work at Beloit College in Wisconsin, at the forum on sexually exploited youth in Kamloops, bC and at Boeing in Renton, Washington.

And of course, I published a book this year, the Tao of Holding Space, which will soon be available in print. Check this space.

It has been a rich and beautiful year nad I wish to offer a deep acknowledgement to my clients, friends, teachers and partners for the good work we have done together.
This coming year, Caitlin and I will be incorporating our business, Harvest Moon Associates. Harvest Moon is simply one way the work of our family manifests out in the world. To get off on the right foot, we’re taking a couple of weeks to hang out in a a nice warm and sunny place for a while, so blogging will be light here and the office will be closed until January 15.

Have a happy new year and thanks for reading along in 2006. I hope I will cross paths with more of you in 2007 and that we might find some ways to play together and make cool things happen.

Photo by Oxyman

Okay, so for more than 50 years we’ve known that Santa has been tracked by NORAD on Christmas Eve, but this year it seems like he might be having a bit of trouble getting off what’s left of the polar ice cap.

But seriously… the news from the north is not good.

[tags]arctic, global warmng, climate change, santa[/tags]

Eighteen years after the event, I still choose to remember the women killed at the Ecole Polytechnic in Montreal. Many of these women were my age, they were my contemporaries, they were students when I was a student and their murders touched many of us very deeply. So, as I have done every year, i invite you to join me in remembering these fourteen women and all women who have been murdered by men.

• Geneviève Bergeron (b. 1968), civil engineering student.
• Hélène Colgan (b. 1966), mechanical engineering student.
• Nathalie Croteau (b. 1966), mechanical engineering student.
• Barbara Daigneault (b. 1967) mechanical engineering student.
• Anne-Marie Edward (b. 1968), chemical engineering student.
• Maud Haviernick (b. 1960), materials engineering student.
• Maryse Laganière (b. 1964), budget clerk in the École Polytechnique’s finance department.
• Maryse Leclair (b. 1966), materials engineering student.
• Anne-Marie Lemay (b. 1967), mechanical engineering student.
• Sonia Pelletier (b. 1961), mechanical engineering student.
• Michèle Richard (b. 1968), materials engineering student.
• Annie St-Arneault (b. 1966), mechanical engineering student.
• Annie Turcotte (b. 1969), materials engineering student.
• Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz (b. 1958), nursing student.

Doug has a nice post today:

Micro conversations can be a counterpart to micro credit: what if we could encourage people to converse in little groups, to take charge of their lives, jointly, in little snatches, and spread these micro conversations to thousands and thousands? Here is where the pyramids and circles work, because there is an infinite set of permutations and each one is creative (not additive, not multiplicative, not geometric). It is not zero sum, where one gathers at the expense of another: all benefit. Not just individually but in our interwoven whole.

Just host a little conversation, do it deeply and with intent, but not a big deal…on the bus, at lunch, at the Art Gallery. Harvest something and get something started, or just inspire.

Micro everything…enough of that and macro starts to feel it.